The 50 Best Sesame Street Moments
Video of the show's greatest hits!
It’s one of the longest-running shows in television history, and one of the best-loved – so perhaps it’s not surprising that there are more than 20,000 Sesame Street videos on YouTube alone. Babble combed through countless fan sites and video pages – not to mention our collective memories – to bring you the 50 most memorable moments in Sesame Street history. Watch them all here, then leave your own favorites in feedback.
– Gwynne Watkins
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The Two-Headed Monster: Fall
How do kids learn to read without the two-headed monster?
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Captain Vegetable
“It is I, Captain Vegetable, with my carrot and my celery…”
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Who are the People in Your Neighborhood?
Ralph Nader is a person in your neighborhood.
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Sharing Licorice Candy
Ernie and Bert in their classic “sharing” skit. Of course, Ernie is up to his old tricks:
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Here is Your Life with Guy Smiley: A Loaf of Bread
“She was an adorable little recipe…”
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Martian Cutie
A bizarre animated song in classic Sesame Street style.
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Savion Glover and Snuffy tap dance
You wouldn’t guess that Snuffy could do this, would you?
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Friends
After years of predominantly male Muppets, here’s some female bonding between Rosita, Zoe and Abby Cadabby.
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I Love My Elbows
Kermit’s ode to his favorite joint.
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The Letter L
Ernie and Bert, Sesame Street‘s definitive odd couple, sing their very different takes on the letter L.
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Grover the Waiter Uses His Memory
No matter where poor Mr. Johnson goes to eat – a burger joint, a Mexican place, even an airport restaurant – he ends up being served by Grover. In this episode, Grover makes up a poem to remember the order. Hilarity ensues.
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The Honkers Have a Baby
And we discover that honking is a learned skill.
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Letter B
As sung by The Beetles.
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I Got a New Way to Walk
Featuring the Oinker Sisters in all their pink-haired, leather-clad, ’80s glory.
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Kermit’s W Lecture
Kermit just wants to talk about the letter W. The letter W has other plans.
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Muppet News Flash: Old MacDonald Had a Spaceship
“With a whoosh-whoosh herrre and a whoosh-whoosh therrre…”
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Roosevelt Franklin’s Days of the Week
Roosevelt Franklin was dropped from the cast after the show received complaints that he was a negative African-American stereotype. (He was played by the actor who plays Gordon, and he was technically magenta.) But for the first five years, skits like this made him one of the most popular characters. He even released his own album.
Great list, but my favorite moment is Bert ice skating. (To help him fall asleep, Ernie tells Bert to think of something he likes doing, and then you see his dream: Bert skating around on the ice to pretty music.)
I still get the Special D song stuck in my head sometimes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0lCmXLy7JI
There was a skit that involved all these sort of slinky like characters, and then this teeny tiny slinky comes on and lifts his hoof or whatever, and shoots a cannonball out of it and blows everyone else away! Does anyone else know what I’m talking about??!!
Two more come instantly to mind, the Alligator King, which I think had something to do with the number 7 and the animation that showed a girl walking to the store for her mother to get “A container of milk, a loaf of bread and a tick of butter”.
Thank you thank you thank you! I’ve spent the last hour singing, laughing, and crying along with some of the best television bits of all time. I’ve passed this along to many of my friends of a certain age who all still know all the words to “Ladybug’s Picnic.”
Ampers, I remember the skit, though it MAY have been the Muppet Show?My mom wouldn’t let me watch Mr. Hooper won’t be coming back. Well, she might have let me, but she sure discouraged it. Didn’t David die after he worked in Hooper’s store too? That may be a bad place to work…Meanwhile, I was really pissed that Mr. Snuffleupagus (sp?) turned out to be real, and whenever I talk to friends about it, they seem to agree. Maybe it’s a generational thing.And of course, almost any Bert & Ernie sketch shown in #33 makes my list.
oh wow… ditto on the loaf of bread, container of milk and a stick of butter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdP7HUPbVs
Great list … if I had to add one, it would be the skit where the monster with the long arms that we fixed over his head and the short monster used cooperation to get fruit out of a tree.
I love “I don’t want to live on the Moon”. That was one of my son’s favorites when he was a toddler.I also love the reggae “Do the Rubber Duck” song, and basically anything involving Ernie and Bert.
Wonderful collection; thanks. Brought back lots of memories.One I would have liked to see (and even a list of 100 couldn’t have gotten them all): Ray Charles and Kermit singing It’s Not Easy Being Green. Just stunning. See http://youtube.com/watch?v=NZJxL3PrrLM Maybe a bit more an “adult” moment, and of course I remember the song sung by Kermit from when I was little.Also, there is a great cover of I Don’t Want To Live On The Moon by Ann Percival on The Sweetest Hours (check out http://coverlaydown.blogspot.com/2008/02/covered-in-kidfolk-part-3-moral-tales.html for a listen)
I remember almost all of these! One of my personal favorites is Me and My Llama which no one else seems to remember (except my sister and YouTube, apparently). It was not a puppet sketch, it was just one of those little live action things they liked to show.
It’s amazing how remembering just a few of these floods them all back to mind. What about the Milk song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O-Q5vJ-GHk&feature=related and Everybody Eatshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kqOhF-RrFM&feature=related
Mah Nah Mah Nah anyone? And no Twiddlebugs? How about Happy, Furry Monsters? Ah, 50 just isn’t enough I guess.
I am so excited to see this collection. As a lover of all things Sesame Street, I can hardly wait to see your top 50 picks!
Many thanks.
Thanks for that stroll down memory lane! My personal favorite was always the cartoon typewriter. He’d roll in, hum “num ne num” then type something on himself “tick tick” then roll back off. Does that ring any bells? I think he was in every episode in the 70s.
Those were some great moments, but the absolute greatest moment of all time was when Stevie Wonder sang “superstition” on Sesame Street. This was back when Sesame Street was funky and cool and seriously, seriously groovy:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE
The one with the slinky characters is definitely the Muppet Show, not Sesame Street. Season 1, I think.
How could you leave off Doing the Pigeon? Or Sing a Song? Or Madeline Kahn? So many greats!!
It’s a MASSIVE oversight to not include the entire “What Happened to Mister Hooper?” episode, as it was one of the most daring (and certainly the most child-respecting) moments in the history of TV broadcasting.
Lately, I keep asking myself, “If ‘C is for Cookie’ is the #2 best clip on Sesame Street, why did they have to make Cookie Monster start eating healthy?!” Cookies were good enough for me!
Great list, but you should make a correction since a few of these clips are from the Muppets, and aren’t from Sesame Street.
This was so fun to look at! It’d be great to add the year to each clip – as I watch I remember them all but can’t remember if they’re from my preschool years, my youngest sisters, my nieces…
Where is being green!! Kermit either alone or with ray deserves #1!